My purpose here.....

My purpose here is two-fold: (1) To share information about the Civilian Conservation Corps and (2) To perhaps learn something about the world of blogging. If you find fault with the structure or layout of this blog, I hope you’ll just understand that it’s the result of a new guy trying to run an unfamiliar piece of equipment, all the while hoping he doesn’t lose a finger in the process. Which is to say, I hope you’ll stand quietly by and hope for the best. If you find fault with the content or the accuracy of things you find in this blog, I hope that you’ll bring them to my attention in a friendly, “thought you should know,” sort of way.

Although I said my purpose was two-fold, like an old work shirt, there may be many folds to this thing before all is said and done. I’d like to instill my passion for the history of the CCC in others, perhaps share some of the odd facts and figures that I’ve uncovered in more than a decade of study and post some photos that you may not have seen anywhere else. Additionally, I’d like to use this forum to let folks know what the CCC alumni are up to these days. I can’t promise you that there will be new content daily, or weekly or even monthly, but initially I hope to bring over a number of CCC-related articles that I’ve already written in order to provide some usefulness and entertainment at the outset. I have said on a number of occasions that there isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think about the Civilian Conservation Corps and what it meant to the United States. I hope that some of that passion will be evident as you browse through – and hopefully enjoy – my blog.

Visits Since December 1, 2007

HALL OF FAME

Listed here are some CCC enrollees who went on to especially noteworthy accomplishments after their time in the CCC. Some served with distinction in the military while others made their mark in different ways.

Henry "Red" Erwin

CCC Enrollee. Medal of Honor Recipient.

Michael Strank

CCC Enrollee. Iwo Jima Flag Raiser

Related Web Sites

CCC Legacy Chapter 44

Civilian Conservation Corps Legacy (Formerly the National Association of Civilian Conservation Corps Alumi and the Camp Roosevelt Legacy Foundation) has numerous local chapters across the United States. Phoenix is home to CCC Legacy Chapter 44 , which meets the third Saturday of every month (except July and August) at the Maryvale Medical Center Cafeteria. Chapter 44 also produces a quarterly newsletter the "Cactus Country Crier."If you live in the Phoenix area or anticipate a visit and have an interest in the history of the Civilian Conservation Corps or if you just like to hang out with fellows who've seen a lot in their lives, we'd welcome you at our meetings. Post a comment here in this blog and I'll respond to you with an email directly.Mike

Camp Views

Below you will find photos of various CCC camps from locations across the U.S. Some of these images are from enrollee photo albums, some are official goverment images and others are actually from postcards that were printed and offered to enrollees. In most cases little or nothing remains of these camps today, but these images give us a pretty good idea of how the camps were set up and how the enrollees lived.

Springerville, AZ

Sperryville, VA

Fruita, CO

Caledonia, MN

Riley Creek, WI

Grisly Cargo

The bodies of those killed in the fire are packed out on horseback.

Grim Procession

The bodies of Blackwater Fire victims are hauled out of the forest, past CCC enrollees waiting to fight the fire.

Sunday, August 5, 2007

They were young and did not leave much behind them and need someone to remember them.---- Norman McLean, Young Men and Fire

(Note: August 2007 marks the 70th anniversary of the single deadliest day for Civilian Conservation Corps enrollees on the fire lines during the Great Depression: the Blackwater Fire in Wyoming's Shoshone National Forest. This editorial explores the possible reasons why the event has not received the popular and scholarly attention that other similar events have received. A detailed account of the Blackwater Fire will be posted in the near future.)

In the somewhat limited canon of forest fire history, two seminal events are taken out and dusted off every summer when the western United States is under threat of a major forest fire blowup: the Mann Gulch Fire of 1949 and the Storm King Mountain Fire of 1994. To the unenlightened, Mann Gulch and Storm King roll off the tongue like the names of long-dead jazz musicians but to historians and students of fire science they are written and spoken of with reverence. As fire history, Mann Gulch and Storm King have held their own not simply because each fire event claimed the lives of men and women who were sent to fight them. Mann Gulch and Storm King offered valuable lessons for any fire professionals willing to pay attention. Add the fact that each fire has been the subject of a book length treatment, and the rest is history as they say.

Mann Gulch and Storm King have arisen from their own smoke and ash into bright sunlight thanks to the masterful work of Norman and John MacLean, a father and son duo who transformed the events into battlefield engagements, fought by heroic professionals, and the battle’s aftermath into crackling good storytelling and a search for answers. In Young Men and Fire, the elder MacLean, in the roll of storyteller, led his readers up the steep slope of Mann Gulch with a group of fleeing smokejumpers, past their foreman’s improbable escape fire, to a gap in the rocks beyond which three would pass, but only two would survive. Their foreman lay down in the smoking remains of his escape fire and survived, as did two of the quickest smokejumpers. The rest burned where they fell, their wristwatches and personal effects blown upslope by the force of the fire’s hurricane winds.

In Fire on the Mountain, Norman MacLean’s journalist son John led us down a Colorado fire line in the midst of the 1994 Storm King fire, and then in a rush, back up the slope in the face of a torrential blow up, then ultimately, out into a different kind of blow up as one public agency pointed the finger at another. Again, professional firefighters, this time smokejumpers and hot shot crewmembers died in a losing uphill race against a blowup, but at Storm King there was a new, cruel twist: among the dead were women firefighters.

There has been no such redeeming reportage for the 1937 Blackwater fire, an equally costly and no less tragic event that killed 10 Civilian Conservation Corps enrollees and four of their technical service supervisors just eleven years before the Mann Gulch disaster. Why? Consider the overarching national emergency of the Great Depression and there is little wonder why the dead of Blackwater Creek do not seem to speak as loudly as their brothers and sisters in arms who have perished on the fire line since. Additionally, we might do well to remember that in 1937 Americans didn’t grieve so openly and, like it or not, men weren’t required to cry.

There may be one really good reason the dead of Blackwater Creek have not received the scholarly and popular acclaim accorded those who died at Mann Gulch and Storm King. Despite Norman MacLean’s argument to the contrary, historians really are little more than storytellers. Consequently, history favors the glamorous. History favors the swashbuckler who swings down from on high to fight dangerous foes using cunning and bravery. Storytellers prefer to recount tales of brave young men and women who enter a particular profession because they are brave and because they seek to be tested. The story of the Blackwater fire has no swashbucklers and no such tales of youngsters striving to stare down the ultimate test. With the exception of the forestry personnel, the dead of Blackwater were not professional firefighters. The boys who marched into Blackwater Creek on August 21, 1937 were enrollees in the Civilian Conservation Corps, a workfare relief program designed to keep young men off the streets and out of trouble, while teaching them a trade if possible. There is little glory in being out of work. History remembers the well trained and elite smokejumper, not the barely post-pubescent CCC enrollee who earned thirty bucks a month with orders to send twenty-five of it home to needy family members.

Nevertheless there was an air of esprit about the CCC boys who battled fire in a Wyoming forest so far from their homes in Texas. Mustered like soldiers, garrisoned like fighting troops, their personal time overseen by the watchful eye of army officers, they lacked only the mantle of elite professionalism carried by so many of their successors. Although their degree of training varied from camp to camp, CCC enrollees could be relied upon to be sober and hard working, especially when supervised by knowledgeable government personnel. For all their potential weaknesses, including the fact that many were barely out of their teens, the argument could still be made that not before, nor since the CCC, has the United States had a larger, more easily deployed fire suppression force on active standby. Further, one could argue that the fire suppression work of the CCC has existed in the shadow of the smokejumpers and hotshot crews who came after.

4 comments:

I know this post is old - but I just came across it while googling the Blackwater fire. I worked on the Shoshone for a couple seasons and lived not too far from the roadside memorial. We participated in a staff ride for the fire each year - if you ever get up that way and like to hike, it's worth it. I'm glad I found your blog as I've long admired the CCC efforts. It's always bothered me that the Blackwater fire receives little attention and rarely do I meet a firefighter who is familiar with it. It is a fire that does have heroes - Karl Brauneis (retired) and Chris Schow did a tremendous job of bringing this fire to life for us the first time we explored it. The firefighters on the Shoshone will ALWAYS remember Blackwater....

I recently visited my Grandfather in a nursing home in California, and he told me about something that happened when he was in the CCC. I don't know what year or where, but he was part of a ground crew fighting a fire, when the fire jumped over a ridge unexpectedly and sent him and his crew into a creek, where they stayed for a full day. I wish I knew more details, and will try to get them. I was surprised to find this blog so shortly after hearing the story. Lesley Mays

My Great Uncle is Paul Tyrrell who per Ranger Post's account of that day, pinned down three men shielding them...these three men all survived...my Great Uncle died 4 days later from his injuries sustained during the fire. He was the last of the 15 that died.

In an article I read, "During the dedication ceremony Burt Sullivan of the Bureau of Public roads was awarded the American Forestry Association fire medal for heroic service during the fire. Five months earlier, Ranger Urban Post received a similar medal for his actions in leading his men to safety. Prior to the Blackwater Fire, no medal for forest firefighting heroism existed." yet , no mention of my Uncle receiving anything posthumously for saving three lives that day...which would have been wonderful for his parents and brother to have. Anyway, long time ago...and was nice to read the articles. I have never been to see the Monument didn't even know where it was until today. Typed in Fire monument near Cody Wyoming and all of this information came up. My grandfather told me this story about my Uncle saving lives when i was young, all my life I have remembered it, recounted it and now I have more information